


please hurry, leave me, i can’t breathe, please don’t say you love me

by starryeyedhomicide



Category: Great Pretender (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Gratuitous Swearing, M/M, Multichapter, POST CASE 4 POST CASE 4, So does Laurent actually, Spoilers for Case 4, edamame needs therapy, friends to enemies to lovers to friends to lovers... ;), lots of hurt and not much comfort, this show has so much angst potential and oh boy am I gonna make use of that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:55:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27880374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starryeyedhomicide/pseuds/starryeyedhomicide
Summary: Makoto decides to run one last con all by himself; break Laurent Thierry’s heart as vengeance for ruining his life. There’s just one small problem...
Relationships: Edamura Makoto/Laurent Thierry
Comments: 20
Kudos: 128





	please hurry, leave me, i can’t breathe, please don’t say you love me

**Author's Note:**

> hi hi hello if ur from my gomens fics this is going to be very different and a LOT edgier w more mature themes so if ur lookin for a pure fic u haven’t found one bud (there will be a happy ending tho. probably)  
> and if ur not from my other fics then hello! nice to meet u :)

“Here’s your change, have a nice day.” Makoto smiled at the retreating old woman, took the next order, and looked anywhere but the bulging wallet in the pocket of the needy tourist in front of him.

It had been… a year? Since their last case. He’d worked hard on  _ forgiving himself _ as Abby said, but he cried himself to sleep at least once a month, and still had a hard time looking at happy families with young children directly. The first thing he’d done before flying round the world and sampling coffee was donate a large percentage of his bank account to the closest charity for kids, and the second thing was to destroy his phone. He was done, he’d told Team Confidence. No more cons, no more elaborate setups, he was actually going to live an honest life this time, at the third try no less.

Of course, they’d wormed their way back into his life, Cynthia still calling him drunkenly and telling him how much she misses him, and rambling about  _ how big Kawin’s getting _ and how  _ teenagers are so hard to raise _ and the motherly character she’d grown into. The majority of the time though, he screened her calls and deleted the voice messages, because part of him was paranoid she’d be planting seeds for the next scam they’d rope him into, and the other part was because she was the adoptive mother of a child he’d fucking auctioned.

It’s a hard time, forgiving yourself, especially when you’ve done something like that. Makoto told himself over and over that it was a role, that he’d been manipulated into it, and both of those things were true, but still. He knew that when he’d stood on that stage with a microphone, he’d felt no regret, no shame, he was just using the best of a bad situation to go up in the world, and now he even had a parental figure in his life that wasn’t going to either run out on him or die anytime soon. Something inside him had snapped when Abby and Cynthia ‘died’ on the boat, and he also accredited his complete mental breakdown to that. But then Oz had told him everything, and it was all part of the con, and he couldn’t know because he was terrible at acting, like he was a fucking sleeper agent, for god’s sake. No, Makoto was out of that world entirely, and had no plans on re-entering. Even if on dark nights sometimes he longed for the buzz of adrenaline, and the rush of success that came after.

“Oh, do you want that decaf?” he asked, his brain on autopilot customer service mode, and smiled, made pleasant, meaningless conversation with the girl in front of him. She was pretty, he thought, and if years of having to read body language for jobs taught him anything, she’d probably say yes if he asked her out. He didn’t, she left, and he sighed and kept working. He doesn’t have the time for relationships - well, he does, but that’s his excuse to himself to cover up the fact that there has just been too much that had gone on in the last few years, and he just needed quiet, not to mention the fact that dates would go swimmingly til he mentioned he was an ex-convict.

He wasn’t entirely alone though - he was friendly to his employees and his regulars, and recently had been considering getting a cat - the café could do with a tourist attraction like that, and he did like them, but thinking of cats made him think about his mother, then his father, and then everything was collapsing in on him again and he’d wake in cold sweats. Makoto thought too much - that was the root of the problem.

He talked to Abby, though - but talking probably wasn’t the best word for it, as they just sent photos of themselves in different locations flipping off the camera. It was nice, Makoto thought, because they didn’t have to talk about their emotions - neither wanted to - and it also gave him updates on where the Team was, because he knew they were still pulling cons and causing mischief without him. He sort of wished to talk to her, but he didn’t know what they’d talk about. He had tried, a few times, but most conversations proved unyielding, except for a cold morning in February that he’d plucked up the courage to call.

“What?”

“Hey Abby, uh… how are you?”

“Why are you calling?”

Makoto had stuttered, grasped desperately for an excuse that wasn’t loneliness, and then gave up. He’d heard Abby sigh from the other end.

“You don’t want to hear about what’s happening with the Team, do y-“

“No.”

“Then I’m fine.” She paused. 

“Still a virgin?” Makoto had almost dropped the phone in indignation, her snickering crackling through the speaker, and to his surprise it was actually genuine - she was actually laughing, and he’d snapped back with another insult and they’d chatted about nothing for a while. It had made him embarrassingly happy to talk to her like normal, like nothing life-changing had happened, and he’d smiled for most of the rest of the day.

Makoto beckoned to one of his employees, Eshima, to take over, and headed to the back of the café. Pulling out a pack of cigarettes, he lit one, and inhaled deeply. It had been a habit he couldn’t quite kick, and since he’d grown his hair long there wasn’t any chance of him looking like a yakuza anymore. The smoke filled his lungs and everything was quiet for a moment, the sounds of the busy street and shopfront stilling. Makoto thought smoking fitted him - his life was dramatic enough to be a terrible movie, or a seven-part series on what a life of crime does to people, and if he were to be the edgy, cool protagonist it would fit to have a cigarette hanging loosely from his lips in most scenes. In real life though, he wasn’t cool, and he wasn’t the good guy either - just a cheating criminal who owned a coffee shop. He sighed, stubbed out the cigarette and went back inside.

An older man with dark hair and stubble sat at one of the windows, and upon entering and seeing him Makoto instantly tensed - but a turn of the head revealed the man was not, in fact, his father.  _ Thank god _ , Makoto thought, because he did not want to see Oz right now, or anytime soon. They’d tried reconciling, awkward phone calls and occasional texts, but he wasn’t running to reunite with dear old dad, and Oz wasn’t either, so there had been radio silence for a few months. 

Reluctant to admit it, Makoto had gone over several times in his head what would have happened if he’d actually pushed the katana into his father’s chest, and while usually he stopped himself there, he couldn’t stop his subconscious. He dreamed not of screaming, not of gore, but a heavy weight in his chest, a reddened stain on a crisp suit, and a silent acceptance. Forgive yourself. He thought he’d killed his father before. Why should that stop him a second time?

He wasn’t about to actively stab the man, though. He was… working on it, and his mother would have been devastated. Besides, if Oz was there, there’d have to be a reason behind it other than seeing Makoto or getting coffee. And that reason would probably be Laurent.

The blond bastard. The almost-leader of Team Confidence, watching from the sidelines with a smirk and keeping everyone in check. The reason Makoto always background-checked his staff thoroughly, hardly opened his mail, and was always on edge for  _ something _ to happen. Something like a collision with a stranger or conversation on the train that seemed innocent, but was really just a ploy for another case, Laurent pulling the strings on everything and manipulating him into yet another scheme that would undoubtedly ruin his life. 

Makoto hated him. Really, the majority, if not all of his adult life had been orchestrated, organised, all building up to their last case that had been a fucking revenge plot for a girl he’d never known that was long dead. Laurent had taken Makoto, a bright-eyed capsule toy collector, the self proclaimed greatest conman in all Japan, and turned him into whatever the hell he was now. His hand had been everywhere, from posters on the walls to men talking on the airplane, baiting him into a con, and nowadays Makoto didn’t know where to look, who to trust, and if any of it was real at all. Sometimes he wished he’d actually killed Laurent with the katana then and there in Tokyo, to get revenge for everything he’d inflicted upon Makoto’s life. He didn’t have a solid reason why he hadn’t.

The worst part was that Laurent was actually sorry. He’d apologised to Makoto before he left the yacht, his eyes sincere and not using any of the nicknames he usually did. Makoto had given him a hard stare and left without a word, determined not to give Laurent the satisfaction of forgiving him and the permission to act like his friend again. Laurent, being Laurent, did so anyway without invitation, and had sent some gifts to Makoto’s apartment of luxury coffee beans and expensive saké, which upon seeing on his doorstep Makoto had checked the street for anyone watching and then threw them in the bin. A week later another package arrived, Laurent’s same loopy handwriting on the front with a note reading,

“My dearest Edamame, 

I am not trying to poison you. I think you would actually enjoy the wine if-“

Makoto had stopped reading there and burned the package. No more came.

He still texted him though, from his fancy job in American government, things like “ _ Mon dieu, it’s been so long, soybean. Come visit! _ ” to which Makoto responded with varying messages of “ _ Fuck you. _ ”. Laurent would always shoot back in a few minutes with something like “You wound me :(“ and Makoto would seriously consider blocking him but then remember Laurent would find a way to keep in contact. The bastard probably had a special notification for him on his phone. God.  
  


The sun was setting now, all customers gone, and Makoto was locking up the shop, cooling coffee in hand. It was a unique blend that he’d hand-ground and sourced from Sri Lanka, tasting of cinnamon and spicy warmth, and looking up Makoto had almost smiled in pride at his successful little coffee shop. Almost. The sky was pink and orange, and set a golden glow over everything, making the world seem softer for a minute. It reminded Makoto of London, reminded him of better days, before he was broken and tired and still had a love for the game. 

The instinct was still there, his fingers twitching whenever he saw an open purse, or a rich asshole who deserved comeuppance, but he’d sworn never to go back there. Between working cons and being in prison over the course of several years means one develops an insecurity, a paranoia, always watching your back even when there was nothing to fear, and Makoto knew he was mad. He knew Abby took therapy (against her will, but Cynthia could be a very convincing woman) and he’d considered it, but if he was given the choice between repressing his emotions with cigarettes and violent fantasies or paying a stranger to tell him he’s fucked up, he would take the former, thank you very much. Besides, how was he supposed to explain all the illegal activities without being sent to prison again? Absolutely not.

He took the key out of the door and turned away, humming to himself quietly. The sound of approaching footsteps in the empty street made him pause for a second, and he was about to look over his shoulder when a honeyed, accented voice cut through the air, shattering his moment of peace and making his brain short circuit with familiarity.

“Well, hello stranger.”

He spun around to see Laurent standing a few metres from him, wearing a dark suit and an immovable smirk that boiled Makoto’s blood. He just stood there, all blond hair and sharp edges, waiting for a response, and like hell was Makoto going to give him one. He considered his options briefly, keeping his face purposefully neutral, then hurled the coffee cup as hard as he could at Laurent and ran like his life depended on it. He didn’t look back, didn’t even think about it until he was safe in the dark comfort of his apartment. 

_ I mean _ , thought Makoto, . _..that could have gone worse. _

**Author's Note:**

> oh boy that sure was an ending huh! can’t promise a regular update schedule but in the meantime come talk to me on tumblr @starryeyedhomicide im always eager for friends :)


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